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Archive for the ‘Tammi Terrell’ Category

Linda Lewis had a mid-chart UK hit with ‘Rock A Doodle Doo’ during the summer of ’73 (#15). If you were there you’d know, it was played relentlessly for weeks and weeks, almost like Radio 1 wanted to make it sell. Or maybe just because it sounded so good over the air, like in my case, coming out of a 4″ x 6″ green transistor radio (that era’s version of a hand held device), permanently borrowed off my cousin.

She looked super hot on TOP OF THE POPS, like an English Kim Weston or Tammi Terrell, but with a voice much closer to Minnie Riperton. I was well pleased to get a US promo later that fall, but had no hopes I’d ever hear it on American radio, despite Reprise releasing it twice. Unfortunately, I was right.

By 1975, she’d left Raft and Reprise for Arista. For once, Clive Davis seemed to be in step with what I’d have done if I were running the label, make Linda Lewis a star in The US. Her first album for him was great, and the lead single ‘It’s In His Kiss’, even greater and a real chance for her to flex the higher range potential of that voice. It should have been a smash here (it peaked at #6 in The UK) and sounded spectacular on the air. I know. I ran my college station and forced even the most die-hard southern rock DJ’s to spin it. They already hated my tastes, so why not flex. It’s fun being the boss sometimes.

Always thought, for the longest time, this was a Mary Wells or Tammi Terrell single. With it’s intentional Motown swing and sound, I vaguely recalled hearing it as a current. And despite it’s somewhat pricey Northern Soul status (a genre loosely defined as Motown soundalikes that flopped), it was actually a US #11 Billboard pop hit.

She made two of the greatest records ever. This and ‘It Takes Two’. Like Mary Wells, Tammi Terrell and Florence Ballard, she was, from time to time, my Motown Goddess. I can replay her performance of this on SHINDIG like it was yesterday. Even though the program was black and white, I remember it in color, I guess because I wanted to.

I don’t believe the general public hears this one enough. Seems to have slipped through the fingers of time. If I ever hear Marvin Gaye’s duets with Tammi Terrell (‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’, ‘Ain’t Nothing Lie The Real Thing’) again on stale, tired US Oldies radio, I think I’ll puke. I’m betting Sirius gives this one a spin occasionally though. Now don’t get me wrong, I love Tammi Terrell, but I really love Kim Weston. She had swagger and I had the hots for her as a teenager, saw her on one of those Dick Clark ‘Caravan Of Stars’ tour packages.

‘It Takes Two’ is also an oddly hard single to find, considering it reached #14 Pop in ’67. Hard to find in good condition that is. I didn’t pick it up on release, and only found a fairly clean copy a year or so back. Now one of my jukebox staples, I spent the day just hanging around the house, filing stacks of singles I picked up during the past two weeks busing around the States with Matt & Kim, playing it incessantly, pressing B9 every time I passed my trusty Seeburg.